Arrow puzzles come under a lot of names: tap away, arrow escape, arrow out, arrow maze. Almost all of them share one rule. An arrow can only leave the board if nothing stands in the straight line ahead of it. Tap a free arrow and it flies away; tap a blocked one and it bumps into whatever is in the way.
That one rule is what these tips are built on, so they work in any game that uses it. The examples come from Arrowslide, where arrows are long and winding and a wrong tap costs one of three hearts.
1. Read the lane, not the arrow
The only thing that decides whether an arrow can leave is its lane: the straight line of cells from its head to the edge of the board, in the direction the head points. Look along that line. If another arrow has even one cell in it, the arrow is blocked. If it’s empty, the arrow is free.
Everything else is noise. How long the arrow is, how many corners it turns, what is lying beside or behind it: none of it matters. In Arrowslide an arrow slides out along its own body like a train on its track, so its body never gets in its own way.
2. Start at the edges
Arrows sitting on the rim of the board and pointing outwards have the shortest possible lane, often no lane at all. They are nearly always free, which makes the edge the best place to begin.
Run your eye once round the outside of the board before you tap anything, and clear every arrow that points straight out. Each one you remove can open a lane for an arrow further in.
3. Any free arrow is a safe tap
This is the most useful thing to know about arrow puzzles: removing an arrow can only ever open lanes, never close them. So there is no wrong order among free arrows. If an arrow is free, tapping it can’t trap you later.
That means you never need to plan a long sequence in your head. Find a free arrow, take it, look again. The only mistake in the whole game is tapping an arrow that is blocked.
4. Follow the chain backwards
When there’s an arrow you want to clear but can’t, ask: who is in its lane? Then ask the same question about that arrow, and keep going until you reach one that is free. Clear that one, and work your way back along the chain.
5. Find the arrow holding up the rest
Some free arrows matter more than others. A long arrow lying across the middle of the board can sit in the lanes of half a dozen others. Clear it, and they are all free at once.
When you have a choice, take the free arrows that cross the most lanes first. They open up the board fastest. This is exactly how Arrowslide’s hint chooses: it lights up the free arrow whose leaving unblocks the most others.
6. Look where you just were
Every time an arrow leaves, it opens up the lanes it was lying across. The arrows most likely to have just become free are the ones right next to the gap it left. After each clear, check its neighbours before you scan the rest of the board.
7. Never tap on a guess
If you’re not sure an arrow is free, don’t tap it to find out. That’s what costs hearts. Trace the lane properly, or check it: in Arrowslide, press and hold an arrow to see its way out, and letting go only hides the preview. It costs nothing.
8. On big boards, work one region at a time
A board of a hundred arrows is overwhelming as a whole and easy in pieces. Zoom in on one corner, where two edges give you more free arrows to start with, and clear it before moving on. The arrows you remove make the next region easier. Our guide to Expert levels goes into this in more detail.
9. Save hints for when you’re truly stuck
A hint shows you a good move, but you will learn more by finding it yourself. Before you use one, go round the edges again and check the neighbours of the last arrow you cleared. If you still can’t find a move, take the hint, then follow the chain it opens. One good hint often unlocks a whole region.
If you think you’re stuck, you aren’t
In Arrowslide, every board is checked before you see it to make sure it can be cleared completely. So there is always at least one free arrow on the board. If you can’t see it, it’s usually an arrow whose lane looks blocked but isn’t: look along the line once more, cell by cell, all the way to the edge.
New to the game? How to play Arrowslide covers the rules, hearts, hints and levels in two minutes.